SLEEPING IN THE FOREST…

I thought the earth remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging 

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars 

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing 

around me, the insects, and the birds 

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling 

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

~Mary Oliver~